Discipline Cottage
by KrisEleven
Summary: A collection of one-shots from my submissions to Goldenlake's SMACKDOWN. Lark and Rosethorn built a life together in Discipline Cottage and like any these have moments of joy, of pain, of sorrow and of love.
1. Mire

A/N Another collection from the Goldenlake drabble mania called SMACKDOWN. This one features different oneshots and drabbles focusing on Lark and Rosethorn and their lives together in Discipline Cottage.

News: Summer 2011 Ficship Competitions begin on June 1st! Check out my profile for links and more information, or PM or ask in a review because I would be glad to discuss my baby with you. :) Nominations are the first stage, so take a look through your favourites and get ready to start nominating the TP stories you love!

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><p>When Rosethorn first announced that she would be spending her Sunsday in the Mire handing out medicine and healing the sick, Lark had simply stared at her, surprised, until Rosethorn's eyebrows had lowered into her semi-permanent expression of annoyance.<p>

"What?" she had demanded. Lark had soothed her ruffled feelings, assuring her that it was simply a surprise and, no, she didn't think Rosethorn was making a mistake and, yes, of course she would be good at whatever she decided to do.

Lark had just never considered that Rosethorn – who liked most people about as much as she liked the parasites currently infecting her lettuce – had even considered the poverty and suffering in the Mire, much less that she was driven to do something about it.

It was months before Lark put together Rosethorn's project with their whispered conversation. They had been lying in the dark of Rosethorn's garden, the summer's stars bright above them as they shared their lives with each other. They hadn't spoken of the conversation again – the magic of the night beneath the stars faded with morning until they were awkward almost-strangers again. But, Lark had described how living in the Mire had been for her, how she had very nearly not made it, and the fact that Rosethorn responded the way she had told Lark something that she didn't want to examine too closely lest it crumble like ash.

So weeks passed and Rosethorn continued to dedicate herself to easing the pains of those who _could _have been Lark.


	2. Your Lips

_Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you. She tied you to a kitchen chair, and she broke your throne, and she cut your hair, and from your lips she drew the hallelujah._ Hallelujah, Leonard Cohen.

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><p>Lark looked away in order to hide the warmth she felt on her cheeks from Rosethorn's too-sharp gaze, leaning against the counter with her back to the kitchen. Rosethorn sat at the kitchen table, potted plants in front of her, her delicate hands gentle as she supported the tender branches with string and wire.<p>

Lark's lip trembled. She had finally found a place to belong and this was going to _ruin_ it. _Stop it_, she told herself. _Just be her friend. That's enough_.

But it wasn't.

"Lark?"

Lark jumped as Rosethorn asked the question from right behind her. Turning, her back pressed against the counter.

"Are you all right?" Rosethorn asked.

Nodding, Lark smiled.

Rosethorn must not have believed her, because she stared at her without moving away for a long moment.

"Oh," she said finally. Her eyes flicked from Lark's smile to her eyes and back again. "Oh."


	3. Turn Away

A/N This is a mirror/continuation of the last chapter, so it is occuring at exactly the same time. The next chapter I will post will be the same thing, so you will be able to see what happens after this.

Ficship Competitions are running! Check out my profile for the description and the link.

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><p><em>Reach, she said, for no one else but you. You won't turn away when someone else is gone.<em> Long Day, Matchbox Twenty.

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><p>Rosethorn didn't know why she stood to walk closer as Lark turned away. It seemed involuntary; she was drawn to this woman like a flower turning to the sun. It confused her, this compulsion to remain in Lark's presence because she had never been the sort to want the company of other people.<p>

But she wanted... something.

"Are you all right?" she asked, taking another step closer. Too close, she realised when Lark turned around and they stood a hand's width from each other.

Lark smiled as she nodded, but Rosethorn saw nothing but the other woman's lips. She knew this feeling. She hadn't suspected, hadn't been able to ward off her feelings like she had sworn she would, after the mess she and Crane had become. They had snuck up on her, somehow, in the midst of Lark's calm and good spirit and kindness.

"Oh," she said with the realization. "Oh."

Turning, she walked out of the cottage and into her garden before Lark could see it in her eyes. It was too good, this friendship she had with this woman. She couldn't ruin it with this. The night air was hot with dry summer heat and Rosethorn felt it smother her as she ran from the comfort of Discipline's walls.


	4. Won't Step Back

_I won't step back but I'll look down to hide from your eyes, 'cause what I feel is so sweet and I'm scared that even my own breath could burst it like a bubble. _Dancing, Elisa.

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><p>Lark stood in the suddenly empty cottage, the shadows of the day stretching from her heart as the door shut behind Rosethorn. The other woman had fled to her garden and nothing would be the same again.<p>

She closed her eyes and pressed three trembling fingertips to her mouth. She should have _known_. It cannot be, not between them. Lark _knew _that, had always known that. For her, it had always ended in awkward silences and abandoned friendship and heartache.

She should have known.

But it wasn't fair.

It wasn't _fair_ that she had to deny her feelings behind her smiles and the words other people expected to hear. She should be able to _choose_. She should be able to be happy too. Just once.

Lark dashed tears off her cheek with uncharacteristic harshness and pushed herself away from the counter to follow Rosethorn into the garden.

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><p><em>How could I have not seen this coming?<em>

She tried to think it through, tried to calm her racing heart and the blossoming panic but the thought kept intruding on her imposed calm, shattering it and beginning the racing panic again just as she tried to grasp it.

Because she should have known...

No, she _had _known, she realised with a start. That was why the question kept coming back to her, insistent and accusing – she had known very well that she was falling in love with the woman she shared this haven with, and she ignored it because acknowledging it would mean facing the panic that had her tightly controlling her breathing while her heart raced out of control.

She had _loved_ Isas. And he had broken her heart and she had shattered his and she was not strong enough to face that again.

_So what now? I've run away. I can keep running or I can stand up here and try to salvage what I can of me and Lark._

She straightened her spine, unsure of when she had hunched around her middle as if to protect her heart from blows. It wouldn't do. There was no way to grow if you didn't risk the storm, and Rosethorn would be _damned _if she would huddle in the dark in fear of a strong wind. It wasn't really a choice, not for her.

She turned and walked back toward the cottage. Lark opened the door.

"I have something to tell you," said Lark, just as Rosethorn said, "I want you to know something."

_I won't hide anymore_, Lark thought as she impulsively held out a hand to Rosethorn.

Rosethorn did not hesitate before taking the other woman's hand in her own.


	5. Mothering

Lark slipped out of the cottage when she was sure the children had set into their morning chores. She took a moment to close her eyes and breathe in the warm morning air. Four children in Discipline at the same time had never been an easy task, and this was going to be more difficult than most. Sandry still wore mourning for her lost family, and even though she was quick to smile, there was something a little broken in those cornflower blue eyes. Trisana had armour up against the world that Lark wasn't sure she would ever lower. Daja's outward calm hid something that approached self-loathing as she clung to the staff that was the symbol of her exile, and Briar – for all his street-slang and very real capacity for violence – still winced every time Lark moved too quickly, as if he expected her to strike.

She looked around the garden for the person she had come seeking. It wasn't that she thought Rosethorn couldn't care for the children – really. She, more than almost any other person in the world, knew that Rosie loved more deeply and more true than her thorny exterior could suggest.

But she was biting and impatient and she found it difficult to control her temple with the most mild-mannered novices, let alone a child who might snap at an adult like the ones she had been continually betrayed by, or a boy who had grown up without any idea of what 'home' meant, or two little girls who had so recently lost _everything_.

They had had other young mages share their home, of course, but none who would work so closely with Rosethorn as it appeared Briar would. None who had required as much love and understanding as these children would.

So, it wasn't that Lark didn't want Rosethorn's help in raising them – Mila knew she'd need it – but they were almost – _almost_ – broken... and Lark had to think of them first, now.

Lark walked around the cottage, where trellises gave a small corner almost complete privacy.

Stopping short at the sight of the silent tears, Lark forgot everything she had been planning to say. She stepped forward to gather her lover into her arms. Rosethorn folded into her embrace, her tears becoming quiet sobs and then sniffles as they stood together, hidden from view of Discipline's windows.

"He's so _thin_," Rosethorn repeated, her face pressed into Lark's shoulder, in a tone almost too quiet for Lark to hear.

Lark rubbed her back soothingly and kissed her dark hair. She had almost forgotten that she wasn't the only one who had a mother's heart.


	6. Words of Love

A/N This takes place after Rosethorn gets sick in Briar's Book.

Head over to the Ficship Competitions to vote for your favourite nominations! The link can be found on my profile page. I have two stories in the polls this time around (_The Art of Stealing and Surprise_ and _Tangled_) and would love your support if you could head on over and give me some votes. :)

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><p><em>I<em>_t's all about love, and I know better how life is a waving feather. So I put my arms around you, around you, and I know that I'll be leaving soon._ Dancing, Elisa.

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><p>Lark was still sitting beside her when she woke up. She must have been coughing in her sleep, because Lark already had the poppy pressed against her lips but all Rosethorn remembered was the dream of something pressed up against her chest, blocking her breath.<p>

Unlike the other nightmares she woke from with Lark by her side, this could not be kissed or calmed away but Lark tried. Once Rosethorn managed to drink the awful mixture between the racking coughs, Lark crawled into bed beside her, tucking Rosethorn's head under her chin, holding her close.

Rosethorn tried to hold Lark's hand. She was too weak and that made the tears come.

There were so many things she needed to say. Take care of my boy. Take care of yourself. Tell Crane that he needs to let go; that stubborn man never knew how to do that. Don't let the girls think I abandoned them. Love again, dearest Lark, because you deserve it. You saved my heart.

The coughs had come upon her again and she fought for breath through the pain in her chest as her vision faded and through it all Lark held on to her, her tears on Rosethorn's hair, her hands gentle, and her words of love in her ear.

Rosethorn couldn't say the things she wanted to say, but it didn't matter because Lark already knew.


	7. Unravelled

The day after Rosethorn died, Lark sat by her bed watching her breathe. Holding tight to the other woman's hand, Lark stared at the chest rising and falling as if the miracle would end if she looked away, even for a moment.

She had been _sure_ she would lose the woman she loved, Lark realized now. Oh, she would have fought it. She _did_ fight it, running to Summersea planning to do anything she needed to for the help Rosie _had _to have. But when she had come back to the deathly silent cottage, she hadn't been surprised.

Coming apart at the seams, yes, but not surprised.

And even though their children had done the impossible, she still feels like she's a piece of knitting that caught on something sharp and had unravelled before anyone had managed to catch hold. It would take time before she was put back together again, Lark knew. Leaning forward, Lark rested her head on Rosie's chest and closed her eyes.

Feeling each of Rosethorn's breaths and every heartbeat, Lark began repairing herself.


	8. A Rose By Any Other Name

Sometimes Rosethorn was jealous of the effortless way Lark gained the love of the children. They loved Lark for the same reasons Rosethorn herself loved her – her endless compassion, the way she knew exactly what was right to say, how she never judged for anything, the way she could make the world _right_ again just by putting a hand on your arm and smiling. But Rosethorn loved the children, too. She loved Daja for her quiet strength and the way she accepted her life with a dignity Rosethorn thought she had never been able to manage. She loved Tris for the way she stood up to the world with her temper flaring, daring it to do its worst, promising that she would survive it, no matter what. And she loved Briar because he was her boy and she couldn't consider the world without him anymore.

She loved Sandry, too. Sandry who was all contradictions: steadfast loyalty and quick laughter and quiet sorrow and the same endless capacity to love that Lark held. They were alike in many ways, Lark and Sandry, so it was Lark who knew just by glancing when the normally unstoppable girl was close to tears, who Sandry ran to when Little Bear was sick last summer. It was Lark who braided her hair into neat rows before she went to visit Duke Vedris, not Rosethorn.

This was why Rosethorn had been so surprised when Sandry first called her 'mother'.

It had been innocuous, slipped into conversation as they walked back from the Hub to Winding Circle on an evening when the air was _just _beginning to cool. Lark noticed the look on Rosethorn's face and distracted Sandry with a smile and a question while Rosethorn wiped her eyes quickly on her sleeve.

She was walking behind the two thread-mages, and had time to compose herself without Sandry noticing her reaction. Soon enough, though, Sandry fell back from Lark's side and slipped her hand into Rosethorn's.

"I love _you_, too," the girl said, looking up at her with a small smile.

Rosethorn squeezed her hand gently and didn't let it go until they reached Discipline's door.


	9. Dreams

Lark woke with only impressions of the dream that had ended her sleep. It had been hot, she remembered, but that could have been anywhere from Tharios to Hajra. She had been dancing, she thought, or, anyway, people had been looking at her while she performed but then she had coughed and coughed and coughed until she had woken up light-headed.

Rolling over, she thought she should feel something more than this drowsy nostalgia. Tucking her arm around Rosethorn's waist, she curled closer and fell into a light drowse. The smell of the soap Rosethorn had used that night at the baths lulled her back into dreams about the things she had now, and there were no regrets about what she had once been, or lost.


	10. Every Part of Me

_Her life is a thread woven into every part of me and she is unravelling._ Unravelling, Liz Longely.

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><p>Lark tipped the kettle, watching as the hot water poured into her cup and around the tea leaves, the water slowly turning the deep colour of Rosie's best tea. As she finished pouring the water, she took a step back and frowned, a little. Even after three years, it was a shock to see two mugs of tea on the counter instead of six.<p>

She allowed herself to miss her family for a moment before she walked over to the stairs, holding her mug near her face to breathe in the steam and the soothing smell of herbs.

"Comas!" she called up the stairs. "Your tea is getting col –"

She heard the teacup shatter, and stared down at the mess surrounding her feet, watching the tea spread across the floor before it fully registered that she had dropped it. There was a ringing in her ears and she pressed her hand over her heart, surprised to feel that there was nothing physical to signify the sudden pain she felt.

"Lark? Lark, d-do you need me to go-go get someone? I w-w-will, just –"

Lark blinked and was surprised to see Comas on the stairs in front of her, watching with more than his usual nervousness as she stared into space.

"That was strange," Lark said, smiling. "It felt like something horrible had happened." Comas looked even more distressed. "Don't fret, Comas. Everything is fine. Can you put the water on again while I mop up?"

Comas stepped gingerly over the mess and set to heating water while Lark fetched the rags she needed to mop up the tea that was now cooling on the floor.

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><p>Halfway across the world, Rosethorn learned about the soldiers who were destroying the countryside on their way to Living Circle. She and Briar looked at each other, both knowing that they could not follow the townspeople out of the army's path, not without trying to warn the temple first.<p>

As they packed the essentials and prepared themselves for war, Rosethorn realized that she might never see Lark again.

The pain in her heart shocked her with its intensity.


	11. Miles I: Cold Ground

_I'm miles from where you are. I lay down on the cold ground. _Set Fire to the Third Bar, Snow Patrol.

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><p>Briar and Evvy were the only ones who were completely still in the darkness. The people that surrounded them in the dark were murmuring quietly and staring toward the sounds of drums and horses, even though the Yanjing army was too far away to see, especially in the thick foliage as night came upon them.<p>

Though the two children she was responsible for stared in the same direction, they did not whisper to their neighbour. They did not reach out for comfort or start to pack the little they carried feverishly, preparing to run. Rosethorn never noticed their upbringing more than when danger threatened and they reverted to street children, who would face down danger with the dangerous stillness of an animal about to attack. Rosethorn watched them, and so was the only one looking away from the sounds of the army.

Rosethorn was still as well, but she sat on the cold, damp ground because she was afraid if she stood now her legs would shake or cramp and she preferred to leave herself the illusion that she was ready to run away from the danger that followed them. She was tired already and knew it was a bad sign, if she wanted to save her boy and Evvy, if she wanted to warn the temple, if she wanted to ever return home.

Closing her eyes, she prayed and if she had been speaking out loud it would have been almost vicious in tone. She prayed for Briar and Evvy and the temple and the people who surrounded her in the dark, but she did not pray for herself because if the Green Man saw fit to answer one of her prayers, she did not want to be left alive when she had failed in this task.

Then, just before she opened her eyes and would force herself to stand and take charge of the situation, yet again, she pictured Lark's face. She paused for a long moment.

She opened her eyes and saw Briar and Evvy. Briar was standing, up on the balls of his feet, ready to run or fight and she was sure he didn't know which he was planning on. Evvy was crouched low to the ground, her hand resting on the knife the girl though Rosethorn and Briar didn't know she carried.

Rosethorn stood with her prayer unfinished. She wouldn't pray for herself, not even to return to Lark, not if it meant she would do so without her children, without saving the temple first.

"Everyone collect your things," she said, her voice strong and steady in the growing darkness. "Do so _quickly_. There is no time to rest tonight."

Her legs didn't shake and she didn't pray for herself, but as everyone was collecting their belongings, she closed her eyes one more time to picture Lark's face. In her memory, Lark was standing on the road to Discipline in the rain, when she had walked out to meet Rosethorn after they had been released from quarantine during the Blue Pox. Rosethorn remembered how the fear had almost been turning to panic and hopelessness before she saw Lark's face...

Opening her eyes into a warzone, Rosethorn walked on.


	12. Miles II: I Pray

_I pray that something picks me up and sets me down in your warm arms._ Set Fire to the Third Bar, Snow Patrol.

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><p>The temple was quiet. Midnight services had ended hours ago, but Lark had yet to go home. She watched the candle she burned drip, a single bead of hot wax dripping onto the green cloth that covered the long table.<p>

She sat alone in the temple, surrounded by such flickering candles. They were scented with a mixture of herbs, depending on who had been in charge of making that batch, and knowing that Rosethorn would have been able to pick out each combination and the dedicate or novice who had fashioned them made Lark almost unbearably sad.

Missing Rosie was a constant, most of the time. It wasn't quite an ache, because though it filled the back of her thoughts throughout most of the day – like dye mixing with plain wool until everything was coloured by it – it didn't, usually, hurt. Lark could accept that she loved Rosethorn, and that they couldn't always be together. She still found joy in knowing that they had their lives together, and that one day, the gods willing, they would be together again. Lark never forgot, but her days were not spent moping; she taught Comas to spin and tried to get him to speak, she had Sandry over for tea and heard about her days in the Citadel, Crane or other friends dropped by the cottage for meals...

But sometimes, on cold winter nights like this one when Rosie was still gone and everyone else was abed, and the garden outside their little cottage was grey and sleeping, Lark needed something to hold on to.

So, Lark sat alone amongst the candles, breathing the smell of all the herbs of Rosethorn's garden and pretended she was home.


	13. Single Bed

A/N This takes place at the beginning of WotE

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><p>The bed was far too small for two.<p>

Rosethorn edged away from the strands of Lark's hair that stuck to the side of her neck and sighed at the heat that beaded sweat on her chest and face.

She had slept alone too long while on the road, she decided; long enough that sharing a bed kept her up staring into the darkness at the simplicity of Lark's room, unable to sleep.

"Be safe, my love," Lark had said four years before, as they said their private goodbyes away from the children, but much had changed since then... Rosethorn had changed.

Because she _hadn't _been safe. _Nothing_ had been safe on the roads through Gyongxe and Rosethorn's memories haunted her, ate at her, kept her awake at night, stopped her from appreciating the leg that wound around her own and the breath on her cheek as Lark turned over in her sleep.

"Welcome home, my love," Lark had whispered, her body fitting against Rosethorn's perfectly – like it belonged there, always.

She had been alone long enough, if she could have forgotten the joys of sleeping wrapped in the embrace of someone who loves her.

Rolling over, she slipped an arm around Lark's waist, watching a smile steal across her lover's sleeping face at the touch.

The single bed fit her and Lark perfectly.


	14. Turn Around

A/N When I was going through the books to make a Lark/Rosethorn chronology for this challenge over at Goldenlake, I realized that it's really only a matter of months, at the most, that Rosethorn and Evvy are in Summersea before they peace out and go off to battle volcanoes in Melting Stones. So, this is after that decision is made and Rosethorn and Lark talk about Rosethorn leaving.

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><p>The space that separated them was filled with silence, the kind that was fixed in place and impassable – a wall constructed of anger containing all the things you didn't want to say (but that was almost as bad, wasn't it? She could still see it in her eyes). Even though they were in the same room, the silence filled it until there was no room for all the things Rosethorn wanted to say, even if there had been a way for her to put it that she hadn't tried in the past few hours. Lark agreed that Evvy had to get out of Winding Circle for a while after her frankly disturbing behaviour during the fight she and Comas had gotten in with the temple students.<p>

But just because Lark knew the reasons did not mean she was happy about it. No matter how Rosethorn explained, there was still that _abandoned_ look in Lark's eyes, and Rosethorn couldn't stand to be the cause of that.

Lark's back was to her (please, turn around) and she sorted through thread of different colours that had tangled themselves into resistant knots. She did the tedious work with a gentle patience that didn't belie her anger, but Rosethorn could _feel_ it. It covered that wall like thorn-covered vines, keeping her at a distance (please, _turn around_). She hadn't felt this distance between her and her friend (her lover, her everything) since they had been strangers forced together by luck and Honoured Firebird, and she hated it, but as she opened her mouth to try again to explain, that wall was there, suffocating as it separated.

Rosethorn wanted to explain what Gyongxe had meant. Not the politics or the battles or the death, even, because Lark had seen enough of the world to know what _that_ meant. Not what war _was_ but what it _meant_, because to Rosethorn all the suffering around her wasn't as bad as her being incapable of stopping it. The violence and destruction and utter senselessness of the brutality couldn't compare to the helplessness. To what it had felt like to feel her power draining away and know it wasn't enough (never, never, never enough) and to know there was _nothing she could do_ to stop _any of it_.

That was why she was going. She couldn't stand by, because, even though she was miles away, she could hear the people of the Battle Islands begging for someone to help them.

And Rosethorn had heard enough begging to last her until she died.

(So, _please_ turn around.)


	15. The Understanding One

She was supposed to be the understanding one. Lark knew that. She was the sympathetic one, the nurturing one, the selfless one.

She had smiled and encouraged each of her friends to take her children away. She had taken care of the cottage and garden alone. She had kissed Rosie goodbye and waited patiently for her to come home.

She had waited for four years until she could hold her lover. Nothing was the same, but she understood that war changed people, and that time changed fourteen year olds – even into people she could hardly recognize as Briar, Daja and Tris came back adults from journeys they left for as children.

But now, at the first mention of trees dying on Starns, Rosethorn was planning to leave again.

Lark was supposed to be the understanding one. She was supposed to tell Rosethorn that the memories of Gyongxe would go away, that helping people was the right thing to do, that she would be waiting for her to come home. Especially as she _knew _ that Rosethorn getting Evvy away from Winding Circle for a while was the best thing, in the long run...

But she couldn't.

She had lost Rosethorn once. And the thing about being the understanding one? It was that one who always ended up being alone.


	16. A Little Bit of Discipline

Rosethorn returned to Winding Circle, again.

Lark was waiting by the door, again.

They came together and the world was right and Rosethorn whispered that she was sorry she ever left, and Lark laughed a little, because she knew that you lost what you loved, sometimes, and she was one of the lucky ones because she kept getting it back.

It just took some time, is all.

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><p>Lark and Niko stood outside what was to be her new home.<p>

"It has a... lived-in feel," Lark suggested.

"It is absolutely dilapidated; don't be ridiculous." Lark grinned up at Niko, who examined the old cottage with the disgusted glare he usually reserved for those who didn't wash their hands before a meal, or who sneezed in his general direction. "They can't possibly mean this to be your home. It is... _dirty_," he said, the worst curse in Niko's vocabulary, at least before he had met Lark.

Lark turned her smile on the one-room cottage. It looked kind of sad, standing there alone in the midst of a ravaged plot of land and something about the way it withstood even Niklaren Goldeye's disdain made her like it.

"Poor little cottage," she said, stepping forward. "Don't harp on it, Niko. All it needs is discipline."

Niko rolled his eyes and followed after her as she stepped around the broken wood fence and entered the yard to what was to be her home.

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><p>Their family returned to the cottage that night for a meal. Evvy and Glaki and Comas were already there, setting the table and helping prepare the cottage or meal as had scores of slightly wayward children before them. Then the four trickled in, Briar gripping his student in a tight hug and smiling with less of the war-savaged hurt in his eyes, Sandry brought a present for Comas, only relinquishing it when he had managed a halting conversation with the beautiful girl he longed to talk to, Daja and Tris together from the house on Cheeseman Street, Daja pretending not to be heartbroken and Tris pretending that Glaki's enthusiastic greeting didn't heal her long-broken one, a little bit.<p>

Niko and Crane and Frostpine and Skyfire joined them for the reunion and it was too full for the one room that was the foundation and beginning of their home, but it was full of warmth and love and laughter and so that was okay.

And in the middle of it, Lark and Rosethorn sat together, their shoulders touching and their hands grasped beneath the table.

And that was okay, too.

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><p>Crane walked Rosethorn to her new home in silence.<p>

They both knew that it would change, now that they were back from Lightsbridge and their work with the human essences. There was a strain between them that had used to make it all exciting, but now just made it _hard_ and they were both too stubborn to see it, but they felt the end coming all the same.

Still, they knew each other and when they came to the new fence that circled the cottage, Rosethorn could predict exactly what he was going to say.

"Well, isn't _this _going to be comfortable?" she drawled, beating him to it. He shot her an unimpressed look and she grinned at him. "It has... potential, don't you think?"

"Oh, undoubtedly. You now have the potential to be living in the house as its roof caves in. Congratulations. It will be a joyous experience, I'm sure."

"Well, the roof is coming off when we build the second floor, so you won't have to worry about that long," a cheerful voice informed them.

Rosethorn and Crane turned to see a smiling woman standing on the path behind them, food from the Hub in a basket held in her arms.

Her dark eyes found Rosethorn's and she smiled a smile that lit up every light within her. "You must be Rosethorn," she said. "My name is Lark."

"It's nice to meet you," Rosethorn replied, not quite sure what to do with someone so very... kind. Would she break the first time Rosethorn scowled in her direction? Could she possibly withstand Rosethorn's temper?

Suddenly, the cottage on the unruly grounds was something that could be taken away, and Rosethorn realised that she wanted it.

Crane graciously took Lark's basket and she led them through the gate and towards the cottage. "I understand that you're a plant mage," Lark said over her shoulder as they followed the beaten dirt path towards the door. "It doesn't have much in way of a garden, I'm sorry to say..."

Rosethorn looked around and smiled. "Oh, it will. It just needs some discipline."

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><p>Rosethorn had thought, on her way home from Starns, that it would be a tentative reunion, after their disagreement on her parting, but it was as joyous as their first.<p>

When everyone was gone and their children were abed, Lark and Rosethorn stood together in the middle of their cottage. They had both been lost before they came here, Lark in the complete change in everything she had been and known, Rosethorn in the pain that comes with creating something too late to save so many, but in this room, and the others that were built on as their family grew and changed, they were made whole again.

All they had needed, in the beginning and the end and the every precious moment in between, was just a little bit of Discipline.

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><p>AN The End.


End file.
